1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a carriage guide mechanism which is incorporated into a floppy disc drive to guide the movement of a carriage having a magnetic head mounted thereon.
2. Description of the Related Art
Floppy disc drives are currently being used, as external memories, in many personal computers, word processors and other computers. In order to read/write data properly in such floppy disc drives, it is desirably required to regulate the azimuth angle of a read/write head to a correct position. A floppy disc drive comprising a carriage which includes upper and lower heads capable of holding a floppy disc therebetween and is movable along guide rails to the position of read/write data on the disc, is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. Hei 1-251469 and Sho 63-161513. In such a floppy disc drive, the carriage further includes an azimuth regulating means. The carriage is guided by two rails as in the Laid-Open No. Sho 63-161513 or by a single rail as in the Laid-Open No. Hei 1-251469. The azimuth regulating means described in the Laid-Open No. Sho 63-161513 is adapted to regulate the angle of the head on the carriage to a desired azimuth angle by finely regulating one of the two guide rails at one end in the horizontal direction using a screw mechanism. On the other hand, the single guide rail described in the Laid-Open No. Hei 1-251469 is fixed at one end to the machine body with the other end being finely regulated in the horizontal direction by a screw mechanism to move the carriage. Thus, the head mounted on the carriage can be regulated to a correct azimuth angle.
In the prior art, however, the regulating mechanism has too many parts and requires a complicated regulating operation due to roughness in the screw pitch or the configuration of the screw tip. Time is also required to make a high-accuracy regulation. As the number of parts increases, the arrangement becomes more complicated and also requires time to assemble the parts. This leads to an increase in the manufacturing cost. Furthermore, the operability is very low since the guide rail or rails must be diametrically regulated by rotating the screw by the use of a screw driver without interruption to various surrounding parts.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an azimuth regulating mechanism which can overcome the aforementioned problems in the prior art.